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Monday, 6 April 2020

A Life in Club Cricket

Being a dedicated clubbie comes with its fair share
of sacrifices. It starts at around 15 or 16 and ends when you die. Don’t be sad
– this is the life that we choose to lead, but it does come with a degree of detachment
from the real world...

Club Cricket...

At 15 or 16 most boys suddenly discover the opposite
sex. It dawns on the average 16-year-old that his penis isn’t just for
urinating with and he will spend his summer holidays at the local swimming pool
trying (often unsuccessfully) to attract the girls from his class at school.
For the junior clubbie, however, his Saturday afternoon in the summer is
instead spent chasing a small piece of red leather around dusty cricket
grounds, getting abuse from the opposition and sometimes his own team mates. No
Saturday nights out for this youth at the cinema, as his is spent in the
company of a 40-year-old divorcee
moaning about the third lbw decision given against him in the last three weeks.

In your late teens and early 20s, the obsessed
clubbie will find his career prospects have gone down the pan. Netting three
times a week at university will take its toll on anyone and the realisation
that you have gained only a third-class degree because you’ve used all your
time playing, practicing and pissing it up with like-minded clubbies will only
strike home as you are about to complete your studies. The fact that
examination time is slap bang in the middle of the university cricket season is
the bane of many an obsessed cricketer as he tries desperately to cram in the
work that he should have been doing while at winter nets.

A mundane summer job is then taken so you can spend
your winter in Australia only to get abused by clubbies down there for being a
Pom, wafting outside of off stump or a host of other reasons as your technique
is dissected like a laboratory rat. The crap money that this job pays you is
invested in bats and into your cricket club bar should you decide that a winter
being abused by Antipodeans isn’t really your thing. While your university friends
are getting their careers started on graduate schemes in the City, you find the
biggest decision that you have to make is between Gray-Nicolls and Gunn & Moore.
This is despite the fact that you bat at seven or eight.

In your later 20s, the obsession continues, despite fewer
trips Down Under. Not being able to attend stag dos or having to say no to even
family weddings because you have a top-of-the-table clash can lead to isolation
from relatives and friends and it is not unknown for a clubbie to be written
out of a rich relative’s will. It is at this point that you are completely
detached from the outside world. The refugee crisis of Syria means nothing to
you as the only paperwork that you read will be the 2nd XI scorebook in the
hope that the talented youngster down there doesn’t nick your place in the 1sts.

The birth of clubbie children brings some slight
relief and despite friends and relatives telling you that this is the most
wonderful moment of your life, you find it comes a close second to grinding out
a hundred on a damp wicket against a good bowling attack. You find yourself
resenting the crying of your children when you need your sleep to prepare for a
big game the following day. This is why the standard preparation for most
clubbies involves nine or ten pints on a Friday night.

In your later 30s, your Mrs, who at this point is
tired of cancelling engagements with friends due to your cricketing obsessive
nature and divorces you, leading you to throw even more of your life into your
cricket club. It is at this age that you realise that your cricket club will
always love you, it will never have a headache, actually enjoys you staying in
the bar until midnight and will never nag you. At this stage in life you’ll
find that your best mates tend to be around 20.

The Club Bar...

At work the clubbie is constantly thinking about his
Saturday afternoon. Time spent on the station platform waiting for trains sees
clubbies the world over perfecting ‘air’ forward defensives and prime selling
time is spent on rival clubs’ websites checking out the scores and recent
results of upcoming opposition. You will know the opposition intimately due to
the player profiles on their website yet should they pass you on the street,
you wouldn’t recognise them. However, you can quote their season’s best
verbatim and will have an intimate understanding of their strengths and
weaknesses. You will even have worked out who they still have to play that
season and spend vast amounts of time predicting their results against yours
and where you will finish in the table. It is not unknown for clubbies to
receive their P45 from their employer in this instance.

In his 40s the clubbie dreams and hopes of that one
last day in the sun, that thought of a trial at county 2nd XI standard becomes a
mere pipe dream. One more hundred, one last five-fer, one more diving catch is
ever present in the mind of any self-respecting clubbie. In reality you spend
every Saturday afternoon doing fine leg to fine leg as your fielding has gone.
Despite this, your life is uplifted when your son finally reaches double
figures in a colts game and the joy of him taking a wicket outweighs the petrol
money spent ferrying him and his mates around various clubs in the locality. A
wipe across the line for a midwicket four is worth sitting on a park bench on a
freezing May night when the street lamps start to appear. You begin to live
your cricket vicariously through your kid.

In your 50s the average clubbie turns to umpiring.
Again, this brings with it a wealth of abuse from someone who is young enough
to be your grandson. Despite the fact that you were in Baghdad when they were
in their dad’s bag, turning down an lbw from their quick bowler brings forth a
stream of invective. It is at this age that most clubbies have at least two
drink driving convictions under their belt.

Good club man...

In your 60s, the sheer volume of committee tasks
weighs you down. You find that no one else is doing them around the club so you
end up taking on far more than a recently retired person really should, all in
the name of love for your cricket club. While your friends are spending their
pensions on Saga holidays to Madeira, your summers are spent collecting glasses
that have been left by junior members of the side in the outfield.

Your 70s are still filled with watching your club
play, but you find that you don’t recognise any of the players due to a mixture
of Alzheimer’s and the fact that nobody under 40 wants to speak to the
cantankerous old sod in the pavilion. You sit with other like-minded ex-clubbies
who you played with, supping half a bitter and moaning that things were far
better in your day. You’ll find as a clubbie that the longer that you have been
retired, the better a player you were.

Finally you reach death. Your funeral fittingly will
be held at a church near to your cricket club and the wake will be in your club
bar. Like a sub-standard tea, a few curled-up sandwiches will be the only food
on offer for the mourners. It will be attended en masse by a wealth of other
clubbies from not only your club but rival clubs too. It turns out to be one of
the best piss-ups of the season. Despite the fact that you have spent your
whole life dishing out abuse and moaning about the players at your club,
everyone says what a great bloke you were.

Three years after death all that is left are
memories and your name on a plaque of a rotting bench that leans from side to
side and has woodworm. This will be replaced when the next clubbie passes away.